(A/N: Another filler episode, furthermore this chapter may contain subject matter that not everyone will be comfortable seeing, however I will try to keep it to a minimum0



The moon sat silently in the night sky, the few clouds that floated above the sleepy nighttime town gave it a wide berth as cars and other forms of transport slowly milled about, many fathers, wives and friends getting off work and whatever other business they had to attend too.

A man walked down the street calmly and silently, attentive eye's focused on every passing detail that he could see.

A car drove past him as he turned a corner and began to make his way down an alleyway.

Dimly lit with barely any light, you couldn't really see a thing in it, however the man had no such issues, his eye's instantly adjusting to the darkness as he focused in on a building at the very end of the alley.

Giving one last check of his surroundings, he walked to the door, knocking on it in a rapid fashion.

A few seconds later a small flap opened, revealing a pair of dark eye's.

The figure on the other side of the door said nothing, but his eye's spoke a silent question.

"who are you?, state your business, or you will be removed from the premises"

A few seconds later the man flashed a small silvery card into the open flap.

Taking the card quickly, the figure looked it over, seeming to mull it in his mind as he handed it back.

Without a word the flap closed, and a few clicks rang out, with the door opening slowly.

Stepping inside the man nodded to the figure, who gave a slight nod in return as he closed the door behind him.

Walking down the hallway he turned and began to work his way up a small flight of stars.

As he made is way up the flight of stars, he heard the door open and close again, which he found odd, he had only just entered the building, he would've known that someone was following him or with him in such a small time frame.

But he shrugged it off and came to another door, knocking on it in a cryptic pattern, he heard a voice quietly say from behind the door.

"Verify"

"Every rose loses it's thorns on a soft dew morning" he replied.

That line never made sense to him personally, but the boss had his ways. 

A few silent seconds passed before the door clicked open, swinging open with a gentle creak.

Walking in he was greeted with the faint smell of smokes and perhaps some drug cocktail of some short, but he shrugged it off, he was used to those smells anyway.

"Malkive, what brings you here at this hour?, it better be important" said a man standing off to the side.

"Yes Jacob, I bring important news, but their for the boss-not you" Malkive replied evenly.

The tall man shrugged as the man sitting in a fancy chair behind a desk a few feet ahead of him cleared his throat.

He was a shorter, but largely built man, his aging face showed various scars from his most certainly long life.

He was Alakai, the boss of this local trade station, mysterious in his past and absolute in his power, Malkive had great respect for him, despite his often grim business.

Being the head of the trade station, to disrespect him was to court death itself.

Most of the nations had outlawed his form of business, not that he cared to much about that.

"enough you two" he said, his voice cutting into his thoughts.

Malkive snapped to attention as he reported

"right-sorry, sir, anyway my message is that the last load of product is due tomorrow night, then we're have to go a few weeks with what we have, suppliers gotta restock" he said slowly.

Alakai sighed but shrugged.

"dangerous business this is..very well anything else to report?" he asked in response

"nothing of real note..General savior's are getting tense with Euphoria for now, we all know about the manifest being found, and speaking of which the NSCR's gone strangely silent, I mean normally they don't always talk much, but even still.." Malkive

The boss nodded in return slowly.

"NSCR's always been a strange one..especially the Fotus of theirs, never been able to figure him out much" he mused.

"you know him?" asked Jacob glancing at him.

Alakai sighed and began to looked at him.

He responded at first with a "you see-"

A radio crackled to life.

Malkive blinked and looked down at the small radio on his vest and grasped it into his chest.

It kept on blinking on and off as if someone couldn't figure out how to use it.

Sighing he muttered

"Excuse me sir.."

Speaking into it he said calmly but firmly.

"To whoever's using this radio, confirm your intention, your bugging up the lines" he ordered.

One more crackle was his only response.

Sighing he opened to the entire radio network around the building and radioed in

"All units, we seem to be having heavy traffic, status report and make it quick" Malkive asked.

A few seconds later various voices began to confirm their statis.

"Group Teto here, all good"

"Group Bravo here, we're green"

"Group Hago here, we're alright"

"group Harbinger here, we're alive."

"..."

The fifth group patrolling the nearby streets, Tango group, had yet to respond.

"Tango group you there?" asked Malkive.

Still nothing.

"We got a situation sir?" asked a member of group Bravo.

Cursing, Malkive sighed and replied.

"I believe so, they were patrolling just north of your current position, go and find them, let's hope on their part it was just a broken radio and not them ignoring my orders." he said sternly.

"group Bravo confirms, heading there now, ETA one minute" replied Bravo team's leader.

Watching the radio carefully it wasn't long before it crackled to life once more.

"Bravo leader here, we're about to the last known location of Tango group, preparing to relay their status" said Bravo's leader.

Malkive said nothing in response, but he didn't need to as a few moments later a hitched voice responded.

"sir..we got a problem" said the leader.

"What?, what kind of fucking problem?" he replied.

"Tango group has been-wiped out, their all dead" Bravo leader replied slowly.

"Dead?, don't fucking play games with me, what do you mean dead?" replied Malkive hastily, drawing the attention of the rest of the room even more.

"I wish I was-scratch that I wish I wasn't, but no sir!, every one of them has been killed..by what seems to be a straight blade wound to the neck, professional, no normal street thug would do this accurate of a cut, especially with Tango group having eight members." replied Bravo.

Malkive felt his heart start to race slightly.

"well?, anything else you can figure out?" he asked quickly.

"My second here, Emmas, is former military, she confirms that this wasn't the work of one of the local gangs, or some street thug, she highly doubts that even most defense forces would be this good, each wound is directly over the jugular, their faces are calm too, only a few members here have any amount of surprise or fear on their faces, which means whoever did it isn't your typically PMC or trooper, this is either something supernatural or someone way above our pay grade, or they weren't alone." Bravo's leader reported.

"how fresh do the wounds look?" asked Malkive.

"very, the blood's still warm too, we just missed them, which means...." Bravo leader began.

"their still in the area..Bravo team stay sharp and alert, I'm putting the base on lockdown, find whoever did it and hunt them down" ordered Malkive.

"copy that sir, they won't get past us" replied Bravo team's leader before the radio went quiet once more.

"And what's going on?" asked Alakai.

"Tango group's been wiped out, Bravo team reports that each member of the team had a clean cut over their jugular, whoever did it was an expert at what they do, this isn't the work of some street thug or wannabe tough guy, considering only a few of them seemed to be aware of anything going on."  replied Malkive.

As he was talking he didn't hear his radio crackle again once more.

"are you sure that it was just one person?" asked Jacob.

Malkive shrugged.

"Honestly, that seems hard to believe, eight people all at once with barely any response?, one cut to each of them?, who'd be able to pull that off, especially so fast that no one could respond in time?" he asked.

Alakai seemed to be thinking as he mused.

"There are a few who could pull that off..but" he began, Malkive noticed a bead of sweat starting to run down his forehead.

"but what sir?" asked Jacob.

"never mind..your know the answer soon enough" Akakai said cryptically.

The two raised their eye brows at him, but said nothing as they waited several more minutes

After a few more minutes of silence Malkive turned on his radio again.

"Bravo group you there?" he asked.

Still nothing.

Growing in agitation he sighed.

"Bravo group. respond now!" he said.

He got a response this time, but not one that he expected.

"Sir..inside.." said a voice quietly.

He heard the voice and listened aptly.

As he heard those voices his heart began to race and cold sweat began to make its way down his chin.

"Jacob, sound the alarm..we've got incoming" he said quietly.

The normally hostile and stand-offish Jacob simply nodded as he pulled a lever besides him and sure enough, lights and sirens began to blare throughout the building.

Guards and other individuals ran to and from, grabbing weapons and equipment whilst taking their assigned positions.

As they finished their procedures, they noticed the lights began to flicker and fizzle out, but in the heat of the moment they didn't care much for it.

aiming their rifles down the hallways, laser pointers and flashlights beaming in every direction, the building became drastically quiet, you maybe could even hear a water droplet hit the floor if you listened close enough.

Scouting a head, a trio of guards moved forwards, the two males and one female guard, very slowly made their ways around a corner and forwards.

Aiming their rifles in a half circle around them, they were armed and ready to face anything that came their way.

A bucket fell over in front of them, reducing in a loud clang that caused the three to quickly aim their rifle and flashlights at the bucket.

After a few seconds they sighed in unison.

"fucking..bucket's gonna give me a fucking heart attack here" one of the men cursed.

"to right..anyway where's this fucker supposed to be?" cursed another.

"you tell me"

"Oh don't be a ..huh?" asked one, realizing that this voice didn't belong to either of the trio.

"wait-who the fuck just said that?" asked the female trio member.

Their answer came in the form of the sound of metal quickly extending out of a socket.

And the second long reflection of the flashlights beams across metal as a blade swung out of the darkness without a sound.

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A few minutes later a second group came around, four male drow elf's raised curved swords in defensive positions,

However instead they were greeted with the sight of their three dead comrades, blood flowed from their necks which had been sliced open thanks to an unknown adversary.

Kneeling down, one gently moved the body to the side, but as he did so he heard a voice quietly say behind him.

"This was fun and all...but it's time to come out and have a..face to face talk don't you think?" 

Knowing that this voice didn't belong to any of his companions, he immediately whipped his head around faster then any human could manage without snapping their own neck.

However it wasn't fast enough as a flash suddenly enveloped the four's vision alongside a high-pitched whine sound.

Completely disoriented, the four could barely stand upright as the flashbang went off.

As such they couldn't react as a pair of blades slice through the four in an instant, bisecting two of them, and beheading the other two.

Standing over the four corpses, Fotus retracted his arm mounted blades.

Taking a look around him, his helmet's visor scanned the nearby environment, his visor feeding him information on just about anything it scanned.

Spying what seemed to be a security camera of a sort, he chuckled as he took a few small steps forward, getting just inside it's field of view, he wasn't lying when he said that he thought it was time for him to shed his veil and step out into the light.

Seeing the light on the camera flicker, signifying that he had been detected, he cracked his knuckles as a set of doors to his right opened with a slight hiss.

A number of armed guards rushed out, aiming to strike him down.

Quicker then they could blink, Fotus dashed forward, punching one's heart out through his chest, before swinging his arm around and slicing off another's head, quick as a flash of light, he spun around and grabbed the blade of another guard with his hand, grasping it easily, before quickly clasping it and snapping the blade in two before grabbing the ruined blade and slamming it into his throat.

Blocking another strike with his armored forearm, he batted it to the side before casually impaling his blade through his throat as well.

The final member of the group stared dumbfounded and blank at the scene, after all, Fotus had killed those four guards in about two-maybe three seconds?

The final guard dropped his weapon and began to retreat when Fotus slammed him into a wall with an open palm.

"You may not of struck me and surrendered...But your still guilty, besides who knows what you've done to people before I've appeared." Fotus mused before snapping his neck in an instant.

Letting his body fall to the ground, he turned to focus on the now closed door in front of him.

Listening closely, he heard a number of people rushing around on the other side, preparing rapid barricades.

None of that mattered when he shoulder bashed the door, smashing through it like paper, rounds peppered off of his armor like raindrops as he simply walked forwards slowly, picking up a piece of metal from the ruined door, he threw it at one of the gunmen, pinning him to the wall through his chest.

Flicking his left hand orange like lit up his palm as he swept it in an arc in front of him, sending out a wave of energy that blew apart the rapidly prepared barricades and slicing several more gunmen in half.

Picking up a discarded pistol he casually took a few steps forwards and barely stopping to look as he shot two more guards in the forehead, killing them before they had a chance to fire back.

A massive orc stormed out on front of him, roaring in challenge he lifted a massive battle axe above his head, intending to strike Fotus down.

As he swung down, Fotus merely raised an arm and grabbed the handle, forcing it to remain still.

As the orc struggled to even get the axe to budge Fotus whispered.

"Nice try", before extending another arm blade and stabbing it into his chest, slicing upwards and cut his chest open, walking forwards and to the side to allow the orcs body to fall unto the ground with a thump.

In front of him he spied a hallway, at the very end of it he imagined was the head bosses office.

His target.

Flexing his blades once more, he noticed a large degree of guards appearing in the hall way in front of him, some armed with knives, a few carries guns ranging from pistols to assault rifles, one seemed to even be holding a rocket launcher of sorts, a few poor souls carried no weapons at all, merely being forced to use their fists.

He counted over 30 in total, not a bad number for this small installation.

"Your presence is not welcome here!, leave now before we got you alive!" said one of the guards, the rest laughing along with him.

Sighing, he merely cracked his neck before taking a few steps forward.

And as the first few bullets flew, time seemed to slow down.

Dashing forward so fast that he simply weaved in between the bullets, his blades reaped the life of every soul in his way, arms and throats were sliced, a rifle was sliced in half, bullets were deflected into the path of another guard.

The guard with the rocket launcher had just fired his missile, when Fotus had ducked under it and knocked it off course, straight into a room full of guards waiting to ambush him had he gotten to far as the room was simply turned into a ball of fire.

After dealing with the rocket guard he side stepped another blade strike, stomping on the parried blade as it hit the ground in a miss, snapping it in two as he raised a blade and impaled it through the head of his attacker.

A shotgun wielding guard rushed him, attempting to strike him down like so many of his comrades had already tried.

Tried being the keywords as in the blink of an eye he sliced the shotgun in half and allowed the mid-shot shell to instead explode in the mans face, blinding him as Fotus slammed him off to the side, cracking his spine and skull in the process.

A rifle armed guard fired on him, but Fotus ducked the shots and grabbed his rifle, aiming to the side and forced his finger down, causing him to unwillingly shoot down his comrade.

when the rifle ran dry of it's magazine rounds, he simply knocked the rifle out of his grasp with a side-smack and stabbed his chest easily.

Spinning around in a blur, he cut another guards head off as he kicked a spear into his grasp, throwing it at high velocity, he impaled another guard who was attempting to pick up a second rocket launcher in a panic to the wall.

With him no longer being a threat, he spied only four-no five more guards remaining, now simply trying to run from him, he chased them down, over taking them in an instant as he slammed a foot into the back of one guard, cracking his back in an instant and killing him instantly.

A female guard tried to turn around and fire her pistol at him at nearly point blank range, but Fotus paid it no mind as he impaled her through her ribs and tossed her off to the side.

The three remaining guards muttered quiet prayers of-

"goddess save me-"

This caused Fotus to chuckle darkly.

"The goddess frowns upon you, enslaving the innocent for your sick purposes?, you will find no immediate salvation upon death." he mused.

Before the three could fully react, he had sliced open the necks of the three remaining guards, their now lifeless bodies falling to the floor in a heap.

Looking back at his handiwork, he noticed 53 bodies in various conditions down the hallway.

Glancing at his visor, he noticed that merely one minute had passed since his massacre.

Feeling impressed with himself, he noticed movement in the corner, and noticed a fifty-forth guard hiding in the corner, cowering and shaking with fear.

Glancing at the door, and then to the final guard, he narrowed his eyes.

The guard felt himself safe, despite his trembling limbs, how was anyone able to move that fast yet-with such precision, not a single blow was misplaced, every strike was precise, calculated and knowing.

None of it made sense-just who was this guy-

A shadow fell over him.

His blood went ice cold as he slowly looked up, looking straight into the the visor of the same individual who had killed everyone else in the hall way, and probably in the building itself.

"Shame..you almost hid from me, but alas you could never hide from me for long, come, I've got a little mission for you"

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Malkive turned off his radio, it had been filled with nothing but screams and gunfire for the past minute, he didn't know what or who was taking out all their guards, but it couldn't of been human.

He turned off his radio to block out the noise of all the death and destruction, looking to Jacob who seemed just as tense as he did, and Alakai seemed to be thinking about something from the past.

He still wouldn't answer him on if he knew anything about their mysterious attacker, Malkive was just a human, a skilled fighter, but just a human, he barely had any magical powers either, as he hailed from a line that often forgone magical abilities.

Jacob was known by another name "Blademaster", he was an expert swordsmen, having once killed five men in less then a minute with his dual swords, Alakai's age often meant that he wasn't a fighter, but he was a brilliant strategist, and ruthless in his plans to control his business.

 He also always had a plan B.

Malkive snapped his fingers suddenly, and besides him a women appeared, tall, graceful, and elegant, with pitch black hair and eyes, standing a solid six foot, she had a sort of beauty about her, but also a form of dark aura that didn't seem normal or rather natural.

"Skarin, prepare to greet our visitor" he said quietly.

The women "Skarin" flashed a grin that showed pointed predatory like teeth.

Malkive raised a brow in question, but before he could vocalize the words, the door knocked.

Immediately raising his gun, Malkive didn't answer, but he didn't need too as the door slowly opened.

One clearly terrified and shaken guard shakily entered the room, he seemed to be scared of something..or someone.

"What is it?, well speak!" ordered Jacob.

The man said nothing except make a few gargling sounds, which caused the trio to narrow there eyes.

"Stop fucking around, this is no time for..wait" started Jacob.

The man grasped at his mouth as they realized he was missing his tongue.

"I'm sorry, but I figured that I'd do the talking" said a new voice.

A gun fired off and killed the guard with a clean shot to the back of the head as a new figure made their way into the room.

Malkive heard Alakai's breath hitch as even Jacob seemed to take a step back.

Now both Malkive and Jacob where tall in their own right, being roughly 5.10-6 foot area, but the figure was nearly a full head taller then both of them, standing nearly seven feet tall, his most distinctive feature was of course, his armor.

A mix of extremely dark grey and dark orange, it seemed to absorb the dim light around them as the figure's head, crowned by a seemingly large horn on the crest of his helmet.

He also began to notice smaller details about him-most noticeably the fact that dozens of tiny droplets of blood seemed to cover him from head to toe.

He looked more like a demon then..whatever he was.

"Who the fuck are you?!" asked Malkive.

The figure chuckled.

"That's no way to greet the leader of a nation now is it?" he taunted.

Leader?

Alakai suddenly appeared by Malkive's side as he said evenly.

"Fotus..to what do I owe the-pleasure?" he asked slowly.

Malkive's eye's widened

Fotus?, the leader of the NSCR?, what was he doing here?

And why was he attacking in such an odd fashion.

The NSCR was known for it's immensely powerful vehicles, often combining a large number of armored units with air support and long range heavy artillery, with pockets of infantry picking apart the remains like vultures.

But very, very rarely did they ever deploy alone.

Fotus tilted his head to look at the boss.

"I am here for a simple reason really, to put an end to your sickening trade." he said calmly.

The trio narrowed their eyes.

"You realize that you've entered foreign territory, attacked and killed those who are part of said territory, without reason, which will cause a war?, this is an act of aggression!" said Malkive.

Fotus turned his head to look at the man who seemed to be a commander of sorts and even though his actual eye's couldn't be seen, he seemed to be fixing him with a stare that bore through his very soul.

"I'm so very glad you brought that point, actually I was expecting it, you see-you have harmed someone under my banner, Artemis ring any bells?" he half-ways asked.

Alakai sucked in a breath but replied with a slight scoff.

"She has been missing for years, even if you have possession of her, she is no longer one of us" he replied.

""One of us?"" repeated Fotus.

Taking a single step forward he gazed down directly unto Alakai.

"You beat and abused her in various unspeakable ways for years, killed her sister right in front of her, and was about to kill her when she was no longer useful to you?, don't talk to me about her being one of you, you view those you capture as nothing more then breeding stock, it's practices like this that make me sick, people like you disgust me." Fotus said quietly.

Jacob stubbornly responded.

"No matter what she is, she is gone from our systems, you have no legal right to attack us!" he replied.

"I have a moral right, but even then, had a little friend of mine who knows how to work a file system, turns out you do in fact have her in your system-system file 034-11-23, codename "Artemis"" Fotus said.

Alakai's heart began to pound against his chest.

Opening his palm a screen appeared over it, showing what seemed to be a mugshot of sorts.

"say's here, the search for Artemis is still on-going, efforts to rescue her are still underway, it's been years now, quests request her return greatly, subject is believed to currently be harmed." he said.

To put the nail in the coffin Fotus simply continued.

"She is currently registered as an NSCR warlord, she has been for years now, she has no direct affiliation with you anymore, as that is simply to keep track of those you capture, it has no real impact legally speaking, however...that means you have harmed one under my banner, meaning you harmed, held captive, tortured one under my banner for years and failed to release her to me by technicality, which also means that I more or less have full jurisdiction to retaliate as I see fit..so I'll start by tearing down this whole installation" he stated.

"And what of are other captives?, gonna just leave them here to die?" taunted Jacob.

"You really thought I came here alone?, come on Blademaster Jacob, even I know better then that" he replied, catching Jacob off guard.

"how did you know my-!?" he started.

Fotus cut him off.

"Oh I know much about everyone here, much like I also know-" he started.

Turning around in the blink of an eye, one of his wrist blades slide out of it's holder as it found itself in the chest of the women Alakai had summoned.

"That your little banshee servant here was planning to ambush me..poor thing, drugged and abused for years into being a mindless servant..I hope the goddess has mercy on you, it wasn't your fault Hann" said Fotus in a surprisingly gentle voice

The Banshee's eye's widened as she tried to speak, but found her voice was gone as her eye's rolled up in her head and she landed limply on the ground.

"rest easy" he said to her before turning around again.

"I had to kill her, she was drugged and brainwashed so badly that even I couldn't repair the damage to her, I had no choice..but this..I had a choice for this, and I accepted it" he said.

Before the trio could react, they felt their legs sliced open and they all fell to the ground in yelps of pain.

Fotus stood over them with his blade drawn, looking down at them, retracting the blade he looked at Alakai and said.

"I never forgot that night..the goddess will spare her mercy for you three, and those of this place that took part in tormenting innocents for years, this entire time I've had teams of my own rescuing all those in the cells, they will be cared for and then released to their families, which is why you will watch them do so, you took away their world..I'll take away yours" he said coldly.

Dragging the three over to the windows, they indeed saw a team of fully armed NSCR troops slowly and gently guiding a small group of humans and demihumans away into medical trucks just down the street.

"And what?, your just gonna leave us here to suffer?" asked Malkive.

"It is only cruel to prolong an animals suffering, don't worry, it'll be over soon" he said.

Raising a forearm, he pressed one button, then tapped it several more times as his body began to glow blue.

"I shall take my leave now, have fun with the goddess" he said, before a blue light flashed into the room, and he was gone.

Looking out the window They saw faintly what seemed to be blinking lights in the far distance.

Reappearing down the road besides the trucks, taking a few people by surprise, he looked over the to Captain Fenix, leader of the rescue team.

"That's everyone I hope?" Fotus asked him.

Fenix nodded.

"It is sir, counted them all myself and ten times over, that's all of them, the building is clear, had your fun?" Fenix asked lightly.

Fotus chuckled and nodded.

"Yes, it felt good to return the pain that they brought upon so many over the years, now, let's get going, we got some people to return to their families where they belong" he said before climbing into the back of one of the trucks.

Fenix nodded and called for the remaining troops to mounted up and enter their respective vehicles, and soon enough they were shortly rolling down the street.

Fotus glanced at the side of his helmet interior and asked.

"Building clear?"

A voice replied.

"it's clear, deep scans indicate that only the three HVT's are in the building, no civilians in range either, no life as well, we're clear to proceed with the final phase of the operation" 

"copy, with that, striker 6-4, your cleared to level the building, time to put an end to it" he replied.

The pilot replied.

"copy that sir, RIFLE" replied the pilot.

The last real sight that Malkive, Jacob, and Alakai saw, was the rainy night sky, and the missile that streaked towards their side of the building, quickly becoming larger and larger, before impacting directly, and the resulting blast destroyed the vast majority of the building in an instant.

The blast was seen in some form for blocks around, but no reason could be given if you didn't know the NSCR jet known as an XO-29 Wyvern streak overhead, it's afterburners activated as it flew into the clouds of the dark rainy night.

Looking back at the burning building Fotus's communicator opened up on him in a private channel.

"so, how do you think she'll react?" asked Interface.

Fotus only chuckled.